“ In the course of 1842 an attack of illness led to his making a journey in Italy, where he spent some time in a monastery belonging to one of the strictest of all the monastic orders, the Passionists, brethren addicted to wearing hair shirts and scourging themselves without mercy. In the young historian’s eyes these good brethren were of much value as living and breathing historic material. In 1844 he graduated at Harvard with high rank.
He now made up his mind to study the real wilderness in its gloom and vastness, and to meet face to face the dusky warriors of the Stone Age. ”

“ About this time he made up his mind to write a history of the last French war in America, which ended in the conquest of Canada, and some time afterwards he enlarged the plan so as to include the whole course of the American conflict between France and Great Britain; or, to use his own words, “The history of the American forest; for this was the light in which I regarded it. My theme fascinated me, and I was haunted with wilderness images day and night.” The way in which true genius works could not be more happily described. ”

“ To-day such a thing can hardly be done within the United States, for nowhere does the primitive wilderness exist save here and there in shreds and patches. So recently as the middle of the 19th century, however, it covered the western half of the continent, and could be reached by a journey of 1600 or 1700 miles from Boston to the plains of Nebraska. Parkman had become an adept in woodcraft and a dead shot with the rifle, and could do such things with horses, tame or wild, as civilized people never see done except in a circus. ”